Now, before you slam that back button at the fear that we’re going to gut your favorite metagame, I want to offer you some words of encouragement. No Pokemon will ever be banned from Ubers (unless it makes the game uncompetitive) and we will not even be considering that here. Now that you’ve read that, you can add to the collective sigh of relief, and move on into the good stuff.

In fact, this whole process will involve turning the concept of Suspect Testing on its head. Ubers is the competitive metagame with the least amount of bans – we have no Pokemon banned in fact. However, we still have these clauses that got brought over from OU and the lower tiers. Ever wonder whether a healthy, competitive game could exist without them? Well, that’s what we’re going to find out.

For reference, here is a complete list of the clauses that are in place in the Ubers metagame.

OHKO Clause

Evasion Clause

Moody Clause

Sleep Clause

Species Clause

Now, obviously we can predict that some of these will have more of an effect than others. OHKO will obviously impact the metagame less than Sleep Clause, but how much? Even if we return to the exact same Ubers metagame we did before, we’ll have gained extremely important knowledge about what keeps a metagame competitive that can and probably will be important going forward in Pokemon in not only Ubers, but also every other tier. We’re really pushing the limits here and I’m excited.

Now, you may ask, how is this all going to work? Well, I’ll break it down for you.

Structure

The Ubers Clause Testing will follow the Voting system, lead by myself and my trusty sidekick Jibaku, similar to what is happening now in OU. There will be 7 places on this council. What will happen is that, as of the posting of this thread, we will wait 2 weeks to select the 7 people on the council. We’re starting from a completely empty slate (no preferential treatment) and will be looking at the following in making our decision:

Ladder Rating – We would ask that you use an alt so that you give us a real look at how well you perform. We’ll know if you use your main account. Feel free to post about Tournament wins when we open applications, but we’re more focused on your interactions with the pure Ubers metagame, since that’s where our baseline is.

Subforum Activity – We want to make sure you’re intelligent and have a good grasp on the knowledge of the metagame. You don’t need to make walls of text, but if you demonstrate a higher level of comprehension of Ubers, we will notice.

IRC Activity – Come and chat Ubers with us in #pokemon. This is the best place to talk in real time about Ubers and demonstrate your knowledge in a more intimate setting (no candles, sorry). We’ll also know your name better.

Open-mindedness - We're in uncharted territory here. You must be willing to push the envelope a bit and not fall victim to the allure of the status quo.

Applications will be opened after the aforementioned 2 week period and you’ll be able to possible make a seat on Smogon’s first ever Ubers Council. If you don’t however, it’s not the end of the world because you will still be able to vote in the general poll!

Before the actual voting at the end of a round, we will host an open IRC channel on SynIRC, tentatively named #uberscouncil (subject to change). The chatroom will be set to moderated (+m), meaning that people without status will not be able to talk, but will still be able to watch the action unfold. The Council members will be given Ops, and we will discuss whether the metagame is at a stable enough stage, with the changes of the round, where we can justify having a vote. This is done in an attempt to have some sort of discourse on the subject before it’s put to a vote, as well as have a measure of transparency in how the council is thinking. If the metagame is not obviously uncompetitive, the council will vote like this and we will proceed to a large-scale vote based on ladder ranking. The council will be automatically granted voting privileges.

The testing itself will not begin until the Ubers Open ends, so that participants can still test their teams in the normal Ubers environment, which will be the standard for the tournament. The time until then will be spent picking the council members and working on establishing what a competitive metagame is, exactly.

The Ladder

Pretty easy thing here – the testing will all be done on the main Ubers ladder on Pokemon SHOWDOWN!, Smogon’s official Pokemon simulator. Hop on there to face people in our new, twisted metagame and get the knowledge you will need to be informed and possibly vote. I’m expecting a big boost in ladder activity and skill, so don’t worry as much about facing that Charizard team.

This means that the Ubers ladder will be wiped before each voting period.

What We’re Gonna Test

Jibaku and I have devised an order of how we’re going to proceed. The general premise is that we’re going to go in order of how big a change we believe will be caused by the removal of a clause. The tentative order is as follows:

OHKO Clause

Evasion Clause

Moody Clause

Sleep Clause

All the Clauses Together (if any are voted to be uncompetitive and sustained)

Considerations Before Species Clause

Species Clause

Repeats

As you can see, we have quite an order here. It really gets interesting, though, when we broach the topic of Species Clause. Since this changes the game in ways that we probably can’t even imagine, we will be taking extra precautions in testing this – including a vote on whether we feel that the game is healthy enough to test it. The italicized votes will only happen if we go ahead and test Species Clause.

The Reward

The reward is a rejuvenated and invigorated Ubers forum and ladder activity of course! What could be better to watch your favorite metagame get a jumpstart?

Nah, just kidding. We’ll reward you with one of these shiny bad boys:

Yeah, that’s right, a Tiering Contributor badge in Ubers. This is probably one of the few times this will ever happen, so this will be a super Limited Edition (tm) Tiering Contributor badge. We will follow the standard conventions of rewarding the Tiering Contributor badge – 1 vote on a council or 4 votes not on a council, and they all go towards the 8 needed to get alumnus TC.

What Now?

In the meantime, while you ladder on PS, post in this forum, and chat in #pokemon on SynIRC, you can use this thread to ask questions about how everything will work. Jibaku, Great Sage, and I will be happy to address any possible concerns you might have. Maybe if you’re really lucky, Aldaron will stop by.

In addition, I have made a “What Makes a Metagame Competitive” thread, which will be the center of the discussion that will become key when we start making decisions about whether sometimes warps a metagame too completely. Everybody will be allowed to share their opinion in an intelligent manner, and all your thoughts will be considered when Jibaku and I make the standards for a competitive metagame, and thus what we will be looking to when we decide to either sustain or remove the clauses during our testing.

I hope everybody is excited as I am for this monumental event. Remember one thing though: we’re in uncharted waters here. This whole thing rests upon how well everybody conducts themselves and whether we actually get some kind of returns – I don’t need to actually change the metagame to be happy, but I want to see some more activity and discussion, otherwise this is all for naught.

I will admit, the first thing I thought when I saw this thread was "Oh God, please don't tell me they cracked and are reviewing Arceus".

I'm almost certain that there are two things that will stay banned: Moody and Species Clause. Moody is Moody and absolutely no one wants to admit that they were steamrolled by something stupid like Octillery or Smeargle, and Smeargle is especially dangerous because of Baton Pass. Imagine a Specs Kyogre with even a slight Evasion, Speed, or Special Attack boost! And without Species clause, we'll have fun stuff like all Arceus teams, or god forbid, a team of 6 Charizards.

This is all theorymon of course, but it's not hard to see why those two will most likely be banned at the end of all this.

Lol, I also thought that you guys would be reviewing Arceus, glad that's not the case. This really does look like fun. I think that if anything's gonna stay banned for sure, it's Sleep clause (Scarf Darkrai does not sound like fun) and Evasion clause. Double Team is really just uncompetetive. I know you can argue that it's risk/reward, but in my opinion it'll just make the metagame extremely dull. Moody is kinda linked to this, but iirc there are only 4 Moody Pokemon, 3 of which reside in NU (I'm really just brainstorming here, i wasn't around when Moody was legal so I have NO experience as to how broken it was in Ubers). I'm really not sure about Species clause (imagine facing multiple Arceus on a team) unlessthis gets a closer look at. My opinion on this matter is already known, just follow the link. Also TC for Ubers just screams awesome lol.

Great stuff. I've only been playing Ubers for a couple of weeks, but I think this will be beneficial.

Sleep Clause has to stay - otherwise, yeah, Scarf Darkrai. Sleep is now virtually a KO in Gen V, especially in the faster-paced Ubers environment. With no Sleep Clause, the whole game becomes about sleeping foes rather than fainting them. Magic Bounce, Prankster Taunt and Lum berries counter this, but by necessity they'd be everywhere - it would be like Balanced Hackmons. Hell, even Liepard Pranster Assist teams might work.

OHKO Clause is interesting. Few things have the bulk to keep swinging with a OHKO move; someone mentioned Kyogre, possibly Lapras. Guillotine/Horn Drill and Fissure also have the problem of immunities (Gengar and Giratina-O will become totally awesome), so this might end up effectively being Sheer Cold Clause. And for every ragequit at being hit by OHKO moves twice in a row, you'll get the user RQing when all of them miss. I don't see them as inherently broken, given poor distribution/immunities/awful accuracy, and if you can Sub first, fishing for a miss is easy.

I say that now, before I get swept by Mind Reader/Sheer Cold Articuno.

I see some of these clauses having legitimate cases for testing, especially as some of the above posters have mentioned, the OHKO clause. In previous testing it proved to be difficult to achieve any kind of reliability against offensive teams, though the ability to pick apart many stall teams with a variety of OHKO, and vital support moves, could make certain playstyles unappealing.

I think this raises an important point. In the metagame where players have typically dealt with almost anything, I do not doubt that we can and would adjust by metagaming to potentially ridiculous circumstances such as the lack of species or sleep clause. I think these tests will show us a lot about the, in my opinion likely high, limits on not only what is broken in the minds of ubers players, but what makes the games less skillful or enjoyable for them to play as well, like the lessened viability of stall OHKO clause will bring, the metagame fluctuation of movesets and items the lack of sleep clause will bring, but the best example is likely the possible effects the removal of species clause. It could allow offense to overload defensive teams extremely easily, as they could pack the exact same sweeper, perhaps with a slightly changed move set to remove a potential counter, like lum double dance groudon and RP don with coverage moves. It would also allow defensive teams to essentially do the same thing on the backfoot.

There will be nuance, and there is very little precedent for us to deal with in this extremely fresh slate. It might be possible to decide that only two species of the same species can be used on the same team, no more. It will be extremely interesting to see how these pretty much universally accepted clauses pan out under testing, and in my opinion at least as interesting to see how our playerbase reacts.

Species Clause could be repealed? No thanks, 1 EKiller is enough for me.

Sleep Clause also should stay banned, Scarf Darkrai(or maybe even Scarf Smeargle) would be all over the place. With that being said, I'm going to abuse the hell out of these when we get the chance.

Evasion Clause: Evasion is too powerful. Look at any Prankster user. They easily DT without getting hit, and Thundurus can get a free turn by switching into a Groud attack. Even normal mons can use minimize to boost quckly. Too haxxy for me.

OHKO: Really should be tested. Destroys Stall, but doesn't do much against HO. Probably should be unbanned.
Ubers teiring contributor. Sounds good. Whoever gets that should wear it proudly!

In my mind Sleep Clause has the highest chance of being resolved. Darkrai and Smeargle are the main offenders here, and Sleep Talk or a Lum / Chesto Berry can really screw them over. Revenge-killing them with priority or Scarfers are always possible, too.

Someone in the other thread mentioned about SubNP Darkrai becoming intolerable, but I honestly don't see it. For instance, Sleep Talk Darkrai beats it to a pulp.

EDIT: Hydration Manaphy may have a reason to see more usage, too

EDIT2: syrim, I don't see Scarf Darkrai all that threatening. It's locked in Dark Void, so it's either forced to switch out or use Dark Void and let the Sleep Talker land a hit.

Like I said before it's not that you can't beat sleep, it's that it will make the metagame dramatically different and that might not appeal to certain players. For instance, Scarf darkrai becoming the top notch scarfer because of its ability to buy time against pretty much every threat not running lum berry, and any arceus form lacking sleep talk bar extreme killer, or the simple inability to revenge its usual sweeping set with a scarfer could be extremely troublesome. You mention beating darkrai with a scarfer, but to get in safely with no sleep clause, you have to make a pretty massive prediction. We can all run scarf heracross I guess, but logic like that was used to keep things out in OU testing.

I think that sleep talk will be the most similar to OU testing out of all of the options, simply because we do have most of the tools to deal with the main abusers, and it will retain the most elements of player skill. Specially defensive Kyogre is and will always be an excellent sleep absorber, and is more viable than ever with kyu-w running around. 50/50s will certainly abound when we test sleep clause, but smart teambuilding can certainly manage risk here.

OHKO clause should definitely be retested. For one, all the OHKO moves have an accuracy of 30%. THIRTY. PERCENT. Luck is definitely NOT on your side if you use these without a Wide/Zoom Lens. So, considering that, let's see what Pokemon in Ubers can use this:

Fissure:
-Dugtrio, which doesn't have the bulk to try twice
-Gastrodon, but Toxic is more effective, if slower.
-Groudon, definitely has the physical bulk, but Special bulk is iffy. Besides, attacking is more efficient.
-Hippowdon, much like Groudon in this regard.
-Landorus, but his bulk is iffy.
-Mamoswine, but bulk is sub-par, so it shouldn't take the gamble

Horn Drill:
-...no one in Ubers.

Guillotine:
-Bisharp, but defenses are iffy.
-Gliscor, which COULD abuse this with Poison Heal, but Toxic or Earthquake is better.

So as you can see, OHKO moves are actually either outclassed or put on Pokemon that won't have the defenses to try multiple times. Factor in the low PP, and you can see that OHKO moves are actually not so great.

As for the other clauses:

-Evasion Clause could be easily abused with Baton Pass. So no.

-As much as I want Glaile or Octillery to see some use, sadly, I'll have to say no to Moody Clause for one reason: Smeargle. It can just wait to get a ton of stat boosts, pass it on to something far more powerful ,then sit back and relax while their now-untouchable teammate KO's the entire opposing team.

-Sleep Clause I'll also have to say no to. Maybe in Gen 4 it could be lifted, but with Gen 5's new Sleep mechanics, Darkrai or Smeargle could make an entire team completely helpless.

-Species Clause is also a no. I don't want to face 6 Specs Kyogres. DX

PU Princess

I will admit, the first thing I thought when I saw this thread was "Oh God, please don't tell me they cracked and are reviewing Arceus".

I'm almost certain that there are two things that will stay banned: Moody and Species Clause. Moody is Moody and absolutely no one wants to admit that they were steamrolled by something stupid like Octillery or Smeargle, and Smeargle is especially dangerous because of Baton Pass. Imagine a Specs Kyogre with even a slight Evasion, Speed, or Special Attack boost! And without Species clause, we'll have fun stuff like all Arceus teams, or god forbid, a team of 6 Charizards.

This is all theorymon of course, but it's not hard to see why those two will most likely be banned at the end of all this.

Click to expand...

I'm going to have to agree. Being able to use 6 Arceus would be ridiculous, and Moody is 100% luck. Nobody is going to want to rely/battle against a team that's sole chance of winning lies within a stat boost.

I will also say I'm not looking forward to Sleep Clause. Say what you want but Darkrai in my opinion is a huge threat, especially to stall. Being able to sleep multiple mons is crazy. We could even see stuff like Choice Scarf Breloom make an appearance.

Excellent. Ubers is meant to be the ban free tier and I'm glad it's getting that recognition. With species and sleep clause out of the way, packing a team full of scarf dark void darkari sounds a bit too much, but hey, it's gonna be fun seeing the effect.

Really really interesting...
In my opinion OHKO, Evasion and Moody should all stay banned they weren't banned because they were necessary broken, but simply because they make the Game uncompetetive by truning it into a dice roll wich is something nobody wants.
OHKO would propably have no impact on matches between decent players and since outside of blissey no common uber mon gets Minimize unbanning evasion moves likely also won't change much, but i am pretty sure that no one would wants half their team gettting destroyed by someone who got lucky with a Scarf Kyogre that spams Sheer Cold or missing three times in a row against someone that spams evasion moves. Moody Clause was actually invented to ban Moody from Ubers and i can't think of anyone who wants it back everyone who ever played against a moody team knows how incredibly annoying it is and it wouldn't change the metagame to a better one for sure.
Sleep Clause would definetally change the metagame quite a bit there are obviously ways to counter sleep and with Darkrai there is a scary one to abuse it this is something i would like to see tested, because it seems like something the metagame could handle.
Unbanning Species Clause is something where no one could predict the exact outcome although i am pretty sure that most matches would propably be decided via Team Match-up. It would be a little more interesting without Arceus, but even then i doubt it would be a healthy or interesting metagame.
​

PU Princess

Excellent. Ubers is meant to be the ban free tier and I'm glad it's getting that recognition. With species and sleep clause out of the way, packing a team full of scarf dark void darkari sounds a bit too much, but hey, it's gonna be fun seeing the effect.

I don't think that's true. Ubers in gen 1 was nothing but mew(2). So you can safely call it a ban list. In gen 2, it was given the addition of 3 more pokemon. With really only 5 ubers, it's still a banlist. It really didn't become an actual tier until gen4, IMO. So we should always treat it like a banlist. I always found it ironic that something would be banned from ubers.

Really really interesting...
In my opinion OHKO, Evasion and Moody should all stay banned they weren't banned because they were necessary broken, but simply because they make the Game uncompetetive by truning it into a dice roll wich is something nobody wants.
​

Click to expand...

I agree with you with the Evasion and Moody Clauses, but not OHKO Clause. If OHKO clause turns the game into a dice roll, then the dice you're using have been loaded so you don't roll the number you want most of the time. And you can only roll 8 times.

Man, this is really exciting. This might give rise to some lesser used threats such as Grass Arceus once we get to species clause.
Also bulky Kyogre with Sheer Cold or god forbid, even Articuno could see some usage. I'll definitely be trying this out.

I'm just going to sip the Kool-Aid here and also state that sleep clause and moody clause will probably stay in effect. That alone is what IMO keeps the ubers metagame so stable. The sheer possibility of have 6 pokemon thrown into a seven turn sleep against a team full of dragontail and roar abusers is ridiculous. While of course, that six pokemon, seven turn sleep scenario is unrealistic, it may as well feel like that given a number of shufflers who could abuse it. Its not so much a problem with scarf Darkrai, but with 5th gen sleep mechanics the game could become far too luck based. It would affect the game in a manner similar to moody did, giving the game a lot less stability and whittling away at overall competitiveness and the degree of skill one would need to become a top tier player. One of the key features that attracts me to the Uber tier is its stability and so keeping that intact would be one of the, if not the only, reason I want to participate in this undertaking.

However, that is not to say that I am completely opposed to change. OHKO clause has already been debated intensely before with the basis for it being potentially removed being risk vs reward. I favor it being removed, given the faced paced metagame that currently prevails in ubers today. Even using these moves could win or cost the game for a player. While this also throws a considerable bit of luck into the game, people could actually use OHKO moves skillfully, that is to say not spam them, using them only when forcing a switch taking advantage of one's bulk. That cannot be said for sleep or moody which can easily be abused and to skillfully use them could include said spamming of sleep inducing moves and stacking up moody boosts behind protect. It is also under these grounds of risk vs reward that I don't mind evasion clause being removed, since a double teamer could simply have wasted a turn setting up by being ko'ed on the next turn. OHKO and evasion moves also take up an important move slot, so i don;t think they'll see much play as it is.

As for species clause, the only reason I think it should stay in effect is because people would be forced to use 6 different pokemon on a team and an influx of new players would not be tempted to try out six arceus on the same team. That way a diverse metagame is preserved. It could be removed, or even redefined as CherubAgent once pointed out. Though the latter seems unlikely and almost pointless in the uber metagame.

Edit: a few people have also posted that they won't want the game to become a dice roll, which is a valid argument against ohko and evasion, but when you think about it, simply using moves that have a chance of missing is a dice roll. The way i see it, every match has a degree of luck already imbued into it and ohko moves would only allow for diversity in terms of sets used. Scorpio made a nice case where he pointed out that ohko moves are outclassed by other moves on the pokemon that use them, so the extent to which we can will actually see ohko moves is hard to determine.

NU Co-Leader

There are some clauses, like OHKO and Evasion are probably not "broken".

OHKO clause is probably the least broken one, it really only stands a chance against stall teams, that 30% chance will always be ugly.

I really support this not because I don't believe the clauses are good(i think all of them are there for a valid reason) but because its finally allowing us to test them. 6 Arceus teams sound like fun so I'd like to try that too :)

While I am relatively new to contributing to any decisions and the Uber territory isn't my strong suit, i'd love to throw my two cents in, if only because it will make the tier become more approachable as a tier of its own, rather than a place where all banned pokemon lie. My contributions will be in terms of the following clause, that way if you're not interested in the following you can skip right on to the next post.
*OHKO Clause
*Moody Clause
*Species Clause
*Sleep Clause

-OHKO Clause: I feel that allowing OHKO will increase the use of lesser tier pokemon due to the combination of [Next hit is Insured to Hit]Move+[One Hit Knock Out]Move. This will in turn lead to a lot more usage of Prankster+Taunt or simply put, fast taunters; for the purpose of insuring the OHKO is left up to chance, where it belong. Now, going of on this assumption, this will also increase in the use of Substitute and by association Baton Passed Substitutes, my reasoning being that, if memory serves correctly, a OHKO move is nullified by Subs. My point from all of this speculation? The Uber tier will move from one of the titans of Pokemon duking it out in pure brawn to one of a lot more calculation and timing, punishing rash decisions with instant death, and also putting those who take the time or need the time to set up on edge, where every turn could be their last making all boosting for naught. My last point I would like to make is that my assumption is purely that; an assumption. I don't expect people to take their Timid Mewtwos and turn tail at the sight of Little Timmy's Seaking with Horn Drill, but it is something to take into consideration when planning your next move.

-Moody Clause: Now, before I'm burned at the stake, let me make it clear that I agree with the notion that Moody is purely a luck-based ability that doesn't belong in competitive play. However, if it were to be considered then I would like to make the proposal to have one limitation: Ban Smeargle with Moody. This would go against all rhyme or reason to ban something in Ubers, but at the same it greatly limits the risk of having intensive and unorthodox stats boosts being Baton Passed to a dangerous pokemon. All there is to worry about from that point is Octillery(And Remoraid), Glalie(And Snorunt), Bibarel(...and Bidoof), which by all reasonable means are not threats in Ubers, regardless if they're boosted to the point of their hardest possible hits without ever being hit. It will most likely not happen, but if Garchomp can return to the OverUsed Tier with Sand Veil limitation, maybe limiting Smeargle can make the difference. Besides, who else but the Artisan Dog Pokemon to be the first to be banned from the best of the best?

-Species Clause: The only reason I think this should even be discussed in any way is simply this idea: There a Pokemon that because they have to chose between one move or the other, can make or break that Pokemon, given the situation of course. Now, what if you had that Pokemon, but had one for every possible set, covering their own weaknesses? It would be as if you've walked onto their territory with your rag tag team of titans, only to be obliterated by say...6 Arceus or Kyruem( White, Black, and Original for arguments sake). I think it's a good idea to keep this specific clause exactly where it stands.

-Sleep Clause: I won't even dabble into fancy ways of putting as it's been said bluntly before: Smeargle and Darkrai will be putting entire teams to sleep before you even have time to cry for warm milk and a blanket. A big no from me, and it should be from everyone else.

There's my contributions, I hope it gave everyone who read it a tiny bit to think about, and if so, please feel free to shoot holes into my predictions and theories, i'd love to hear arguments. I'm also beginning to think that this Suspect Testing will be the influence that pushes me into really playing Ubers as apposed to occasionally.

the only one i see there that i do not consider completely broken or completely luck based is (prepping myself for the fires of hell to rain down from you guys) the evasion clause. Now just let me explain, it is not one of those broken luck things. In the current metagame, garchomp is allowed with sand veil, which gives it a free 20% evasion without attacking. One evasion boost would give the pokemon 75%, not much difference. In fact the chance for hax taking effect are the exact same as paralysis, a very commonplace strategy, and this would not even lower the opponents speed. it seems silly that one form of hax is allowed and not the other.
As for moody, this is just plain luck of the draw. If you get the right boosts, you are immortal, if you get the wrong ones, you're death fodder. Sleep clause being removed would start to centralize the metagame on things like choice scarf darkrai and breloom. OHKO are rather pointless in a homogeneous-level environment, due to the 30% accuracy. The entire point of bans/clauses are to keep a metagame fresh and full of diversity, so removing the species clause is just counter-productive.
I hope in this explanation i have made my case, after testing i may find some of my views wrong, but only time will tell.

This should be a lot of fun, and a great way to separate Ubers from the lower tiers. While OHKO clause probably isn't a big deal, Species, Sleep, and Evasion most certainly will. A lot more people are going to start running Sleep Talkers to combat this. Heck, running 2 Kyogre would be a lot of fun - one to Sleep Talk and another Scarfed. Arceus formes that were formerly overlooked in favor of the ExtremeKiller could also see some use. Moody clause is the wild card here - it'll be interesting to see how powerful it actually can be.

While I don't play Ubers, I only see a problem with Evasion Clause being unbanned. Evasion is to OP and Blissey would be the best Pokemon in the game.
Seems interesting... I wonder what th conclusion will be?